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My close friends are worried for the safety of commentators on violent crime. In my case, they firmly believe that I have done enough in analysing the untouched core of criminal activity.
At that core, regardless of which political party is in government, is the troubling intersection of party politics, the underground economy and distrusted elements in law enforcement.
In keeping with that advice, I will simply say that the latest statement of the Prime Minister (the PM) on the current violent crime spree contains the usual bias against the lower ranks of criminal enterprise with superficial phraseology like “the selection of violence as way of life, the love affair and glamorisation of firearms”. Mention of the involvement of other socio-economic classes is omitted.
However, I do want to open for discussion the value of last Tuesday’s proclamation, which preceded the PM’s statement, and which authorised the call out of 100 Defence Force reservists to perform routine duties in place of regular army personnel.
We had eight murders in a 24-hour period between last Sunday and last Monday. On Tuesday, in addition to the proclamation and the PM’s statement, a meeting of the National Security Council, with the PM in the chair (made of course into a photo-op) took place.
The PM’s statement was welcomed in some quarters as “a change of tone”. There are however discrepancies between the reality of violent crime and the call out proclamation.
In addition, National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds, in a contemporaneous interview, seemed to undermine how the PM’s strong tone appeared to relate to the eight-murder spree.
Photo: OPM
The proclamation specified the purpose and period of call out as: “operational support to the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service in the provision of a safe and secure environment during the pre-Christmas season to the 2024 Carnival period”.
According to the interview with National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds, the call out of the reservists will mean that regular army personnel will become available “to come out and enhance patrols and presence in the national community… with crowds gathering to shop here, shop there, and parties here, party there.”
Home invasion and armed robbery have no season. Neither does murder. The chilling regularity of these incidents has left the population terrified.
More murders have occurred subsequent to the proclamation. The violence is not limited to places where citizens will do Christmas shopping and fete for Carnival. There is a significant number of citizens that are not involved in feteing for Carnival and playing mas. Very many citizens are justifiably nervous within their homes and scared to go out.
The preamble to the call out proclamation acknowledges that the threshold for a call out is “aid to the civil power in any case in which a riot, disturbance of the peace or other emergency requiring” the call-out of reserves.
Now check this: In Ria Taitt’s report in the Trinidad Express newspaper on Wednesday it was recorded that, when asked whether the trigger for this action of calling out was the eight murders committed between Sunday and Monday, National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds said:
“Far from that… This is the Government’s response to the obvious need for a greater presence as a deterrent to the crime patterns that are now afflicting us in the national community.”
It seems puerile and inconsistent with the change in Prime Ministerial tone to downplay the murderous events of the period preceding the call out of the reservists, but that is par for the Government’s deflection course.
Multiple murderous events are a recurring feature of the “crime patterns that are now afflicting us”. Why the attempted deflection?
(Copyright Ministry of National Security)
Those who are unable to afford the sedation of Carnival fetes or do not become easily distracted from the Government’s failure to deal effectively with violent crime, may wonder whether the Christmas/Carnival call out is all that the Government has to offer for their protection.
This seasonal call out does not seem adequate to deal with the grim reality of what is happening across the entire country year-round or with “the disturbance of the peace or other emergency”, which is the stated basis of the proclamation.
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Martin G Daly SC is a prominent attorney-at-law. He is a former Independent Senator and past president of the Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago.
He is chairman of the Pat Bishop Foundation and a steelpan music enthusiast.
